Essay on Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut: Jonah, the Veracious Dwarf

Preface: This essay was found from the archives of intellectual thought concerning cats and cradles. It investigates the origin of the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut’s critically acclaimed novel in an effort to unravel the shroud of mystery shrouding the mystery.  

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

When encountering a piece of literature where all verities could actually be falsities, anything becomes possible. Characters could easily be the contrary of what was originally thought of them, the story could be turned upside down, and anything could be picked apart and transformed into a new idea. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is a satirical novel in which it is explicitly stated that nothing in the book is true therefore in the same way, anything can be true. The book is from the perspective of a character named Jonah who is a considerable mystery to the readers. However, when pulling apart the intricate strings of the cat’s cradle, one can discover his true identity. Jonah is a dwarf because of his lack of self-expression, the way he projects himself onto another character, and his perception of dwarves.

Jonah is barely described in the entirety of the book to the point where even his name is uncertain and is only ever mentioned once. In the first line of the novel, he beseeches the readers to ignore whoever he truly is: “Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John. Jonah- John- if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still” (13). Whoever he is, he refuses to disclose it. His name, his identity, is completely irrelevant to the story. Instead of being a fully fleshed out character, he becomes a mere set of eyes to see and recount what occurs around him. He is someone that will not distract the audience from the story as he is presented with such little complexity that the readers may not even care very much about him. His lack of an image unarguably translates into him being someone more fascinating than expected for if he was a fully developed character, he would have taken some of the spotlight away from the plot. Jonah’s description being considered as so trivial only emphasizes to a greater extent the idea that his character is in fact the opposite.

There is only one other character in the novel who is a dwarf: Newt. Jonah’s depiction of him undoubtedly further proves his own identity as a dwarf. He describes Newt as a character who is not affected by the degradation he experiences. He recounts his conversation with Angela and Newt regarding the letters he sent them and narrates, “She implied that Newt was still too immature to deal directly with the outside world. Angela was a God-awfully insensitive woman with no feeling for what smallness meant to Newt” (112). Jonah is completely projecting onto Newt because he knows what smallness means, being a dwarf himself. He fully understands Newt’s pain and suffering. Nonetheless, he aspires to attain the level of inner peace Newt seems to have. He says, “Never had I seen a human being better adjusted to such a humiliating physical handicap. I shuddered with admiration” (130). Jonah is shocked that this dwarf manages to retain a calm composure no matter what, thus implying that Jonah, on the other hand, struggles with his identity. He wishes he could be Newt. Newt is the personification of his own self image as is seen later on when it is noted that while Jonah is the writer, Newt is the painter: “You write books that make us laugh [...] and little Newt- he paints pictures for us all” (278). Jonah, as the writer, tells the tale how he pleases, whether it may be the truth or not. In contrast, Newt paints the image of what Jonah writes. He has control over the author’s words as he is the visual representation of the story. Newt symbolizes Jonah’s self image. Newt is a dwarf, hence Jonah is a dwarf.

Jonah has a different perception of dwarves compared to the other characters of the novel. While they always make the superfluous effort to refer to him as small, Jonah always treats him as his equal. This is obviously because he is quite literally his equal. Hazel mentions to him her encounter with Newt in which she almost asked him to call her mom, as she beseeches most people to do: “‘I wondered if maybe it wouldn't be rude to ask a midget to do that.’ ‘Nonsense’” (110). Hazel is careful with how she approaches dwarves as she does not know how they feel about certain things. Jonah, however, says with certainty that such a precaution is absurd, thus affirming that he knows what a dwarf would think. The readers should wonder why that may be.

Jonah is, as sure as eggs is eggs, a dwarf. His purposeful lack of self-expression is prominent throughout the novel. Furthermore, his usage of another dwarf character to escape his own pain and to represent his own image is recurring. He treats dwarves differently than the others, he treats them as equals. One only needs to pull apart the complexity of the cat’s cradle’s strings to uncover the truth.